American Scapegoat - by Enzo Silon Surin (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

American Scapegoat is a book of painstakingly honest and chilling poems about America's neglectful relationship with its own history. At the core of this reluctance to frame the past in its proper context is the fraudulent and fraught mythology that Black people are what America needs to be protected from. This extremely damaging narrative has been prominently embedded within the socio-political framework of American culture and continues to play an inescapably significant role in the Black experience in America. This timely collection looks both to the past and the future, and fosters a deeply essential conversation about what it means to be Black and American in a democracy at war with itself and its humanity.

"In America, choice's always an illusion. And it always comes back to having to answer questions for which my body is never prepared.

"Through his own distinctive path, Enzo Silon Surin bears witness to the complexities of the Black experience in America. These poems examine the hard edges and paradoxes as a way of illuminating them as he grapples with violence, injustice, masculinity, intimacy, and fatherhood. How does one locate themselves in this American landscape? American Scapegoat is a remarkable testament to the power of language, marked with intensity, radiance, and hope."-January Gill O'Neil

"The poems in American Scapegoat are not for the faint of heart. Wrapped masterfully in poetry's artful tongue, they do not seek absolution nor do they apologize as the collection indicts American racism and its bloated, systemic injustices. Heightening the reader's experience with a surgically precise interrogation of form in poems like "American Lexicon," "Prelude," and "American Witness," Enzo Silon Surin writes against our fears and shines bright the hope we dare have for our sons."-Frank X Walker

Poetry. Family & Relationships. African & African American Studies.

Review Quotes

"Through his own distinctive path, Enzo Silon Surin bears witness to the complexities of the Black experience in America. These poems examine the hard edges and paradoxes as a way of illuminating them as he grapples with violence, injustice, masculinity, intimacy, and fatherhood. How does one locate themselves in this American landscape? American Scapegoat is a remarkable testament to the power of language, marked with intensity, radiance, and hope."--January Gill O'Neil

"The poems in American Scapegoat are not for the faint of heart. Wrapped masterfully in poetry's artful tongue, they do not seek absolution nor do they apologize as the collection indicts American racism and its bloated, systemic injustices. Heightening the reader's experience with a surgically precise interrogation of form in poems like "American Lexicon," "Prelude," and "American Witness," Enzo Silon Surin writes against our fears and shines bright the hope we dare have for our sons."--Frank X Walker

About the Author

Enzo Silon Surin is a Haitian-born award-winning poet, author, educator, publisher and social advocate. He's taught, performed, and lectured on topics such as social justice, the immigrant experience, and racial disparities. He is the author of American Scapegoat (Black Lawrence Press, 2023) and When My Body Was A Clinched Fist (Black Lawrence Press), winner of the Massachusetts Book Award. He's also authored two chapbooks and is co-editor of Where We Stand: Poems of Black Resilience (Cherry Castle Publishing). Surin is Publisher at Central Square Press and Founder/Executive Director at the Faraday Publishing Company, Inc.